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suggested that Woods write a diagnostic program to print out the contents of the accumulator and particular store lines at specific points in the program so that error diagnosis could take place away from the computer. The challenge of her routine, 'Stopandprint', was that it had to monitor the program under diagnosis without interfering with it, and the limited space in the fast store made this difficult. Along with Bennet and Dr D.G. Prinz, Woods was involved in writing interpretive subroutines that were used by the
Ferranti group.
365:. This could be argued as the logically sensible choice, but was changed to the more conventional system of the most significant bit on the left for the Mark 1 Star. The Mark 1 Star worked with both fractions and integers. The Baudot teleprinter code was also abandoned for one that was in the following order:
373:
Program errors for the
Ferranti Mark 1 computers were difficult to find. Programmers would sit at the computer control desk and watch the computer perform one instruction at a time in order to see where unintended events occurred. However, computer time became more and more valuable, so Dr Bennett
377:
Errors with the programs were one problem, but errors caused by the computer were another. The computer frequently misread the binary digits it was given. The engineers thought the mathematicians could compensate for this by programming arithmetic checks, and the mathematicians would too readily
403:
Woods left
Ferranti in 1955, when her first child was born. She continued to get involved in smaller programming projects, that she termed "cottage industry programming," so that she could complete jobs from home. Most notably she did some work with the London Transport Executive, to develop a
378:
assume that a wrong program result was due to a computer error when it was due to a program error. This caused inevitable friction between the mathematicians and the engineers. At the centre of this was a program that Woods had written for inverting a matrix to solve 40
353:, which appeared as sixty-four 20-bit lines on the CRTs. The programmer had to control all transfers between electronic and magnetic storage, and the transfers were slow and had to be reduced to a minimum. For programs dealing with large chunks of data, such as
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390:
in the engineering department. Kilburn was polite but did not argue, and she felt he was ignoring her complaint. However, 50 years later when she asked him about the exchange, he said that he had not argued "because knew right."
394:
While at
Ferranti, Woods discovered that the women in her department were getting less pay than the men. She presented the case to the personnel department and was able to convince them to grant equal pay and rights for women.
537:
Conway and Mary Lee
Berners-Lee, interviewed by Thomas Lean, 2010–2011, An Oral History of British Science, British Library Sound & Moving Image reference C1379/23 Audio and Transcript (at British Library only but brief
412:
to track weather balloons and translate their readings. Then she came out of retirement in 1963 to work for a London-based company called K and H. While at K and H she wrote programming manuals until she retired in 1987.
360:
The
Ferranti Mark 1 computer worked in integer arithmetic, and the engineers built the computer to display the lines of data on the CRTs with the most significant bit on the right due to their background in
382:, which was a large number for the time. The long rows of data required by this calculation took the computer too long to process without an error. For one dispute Woods went to
186:
663:
314:
The
Ferranti programming team members found it useful to commit the following sequence of characters to memory, which represented the numbers 0–31 in the
425:
whom she met while working in the
Ferranti team, and together they had four children; Timothy (Tim), Peter, Helen and Michael (Mike). Their eldest son,
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960:
925:
244:, where she developed an aptitude for mathematics. From 1942 to 1944, she took a wartime compressed two-year degree course in mathematics at the
940:
303:, and there was plenty of room for error because every bit had to be right. The machines used serial 40-bit arithmetic (with a double length
185:; 12 March 1924 – 29 November 2017) was an English mathematician and computer scientist who worked in a team that developed programs in the
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until 1946 when she returned to take the third year of her degree. After completing her degree she was offered a fellowship by
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Another difficulty of programming the
Ferranti Mark 1 computers was the two-level storage of the computers. There were eight
930:
589:
760:, IEEE History Center Interviews, vol. 578, IEEE History Center – via Engineering and Technology History Wiki
667:
440:
After a period devoted to bringing up children, she became a schoolteacher of mathematics, and then a programmer using
307:), which meant that there were considerable difficulties in scaling the variables in the program to maintain adequate
514:"I am Tim Berners-Lee. I invented the WWW 25 years ago and I am concerned and excited about its future. AMA • r/IAmA"
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to Ida (née
Burrows) and Bertie Woods. Both her parents were teachers. She had a brother who served in the
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624:(1980). "Programming the Mark I: Early Programming Activity at the University of Manchester".
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489:"Scientific pioneers honoured by The University of Manchester – The University of Manchester"
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469:"Mary Lee Berners-Lee: Pioneering computer programmer whose son invented the world wide web"
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People associated with the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
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Weaving the Web: The Past, Present and Future of the World Wide Web by its Inventor
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357:, partitioning the data into page-sized chunks could be troublesome.
692:; Prinz, D.G.; Woods, M. L. (1952), "Interpretative sub-routines",
632:(2). American Federation of Information Processing Societies: 155.
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On joining the UK and electrical engineering and equipment firm,
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computers. The programs for these computers were written in
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simulation for bus routes that could prevent hold ups and
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Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
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News Bulletin from the Parish of SS Alban & Stephen
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725:, "Comments on Programming the Manchester Mark I",
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268:, Australia, from 1947 to 1951 when she joined
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408:. She also developed a program for the RAF at
448:and other languages before retiring in 1987.
16:British mathematician and computer programmer
349:. Each page consisted of thirty-two 40-bit
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966:21st-century British women mathematicians
961:20th-century British women mathematicians
250:Telecommunications Research Establishment
98:Telecommunications Research Establishment
284:, she started working in a group led by
272:in Manchester as a computer programmer.
855:from the original on 30 September 2023.
545:
451:She died on 29 November 2017, aged 93.
388:Professor Sir Frederic Calland Williams
236:and was killed in action. She attended
926:Alumni of the University of Birmingham
898:
819:Father of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee
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316:International Telegraph Alphabet No. 1
212:, an English researcher and writer on
941:People from Birmingham, West Midlands
874:, 24–25 December 2017, archived from
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224:Woods was born on 12 March 1924, in
921:21st-century English mathematicians
916:20th-century English mathematicians
559:Ferry, Georgina (23 January 2018).
276:Ferranti computer programming group
13:
815:
770:
757:Mary Lee Berners-Lee: An Interview
727:Annals of the History of Computing
626:Annals of the History of Computing
591:Programming on the Ferranti Mark 1
14:
977:
951:British women computer scientists
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369:ø£½0@:$ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ
200:computers. She was the mother of
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322:/E@A:SIU½DRJNFCKTZLWHYPQOBG"MXV£
164:Ida Frances Lee Burrows (mother)
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561:"Mary Lee Berners-Lee obituary"
332:Williams cathode ray tube (CRT)
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694:Proc. ACM Nat. Conf., Toronto
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141:Sir Tim Berners-Lee (Timothy)
956:British women mathematicians
660:The University of Manchester
586:The University of Manchester
399:Cottage industry programming
258:Richard van der Riet Woolley
7:
931:British computer scientists
10:
982:
796:, London: Orion Business,
788:; Fischetti, Mark (1999),
248:. She then worked for the
161:Bertie John Woods (father)
149:Mike Berners-Lee (Michael)
433:, and their youngest son
386:, who was second only to
262:Mount Stromlo Observatory
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102:Mount Stromlo Observatory
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30:
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246:University of Birmingham
220:Early life and education
88:University of Birmingham
739:10.1109/MAHC.1981.10014
638:10.1109/mahc.1980.10018
429:is the inventor of the
341:, and 512 pages of the
291:She worked on both the
845:"Mary Lee Berners-Lee"
664:"The Ferranti Mark 1*"
622:Campbell-Kelly, Martin
380:simultaneous equations
286:John Makepeace Bennett
238:Yardley Grammar School
226:Hall Green, Birmingham
204:, the inventor of the
54:Hall Green, Birmingham
754:(12 September 2001),
702:10.1145/800259.809002
421:In 1954 she married
335:random access memory
309:arithmetic precision
297:Ferranti Mark 1 Star
174:Mary Lee Berners-Lee
849:The British Library
427:Sir Tim Berners-Lee
242:Yardley, Birmingham
202:Sir Tim Berners-Lee
696:, pp. 81–87,
542:available online).
423:Conway Berners-Lee
118:Conway Berners-Lee
881:on 9 January 2018
803:978-0-7528-2090-3
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214:greenhouse gases
210:Mike Berners-Lee
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68:29 November 2017
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129: 1954)
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50:12 March 1924
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883:, retrieved
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672:. Retrieved
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565:The Guardian
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521:. Retrieved
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496:. Retrieved
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406:bus bunching
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337:as the fast
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301:machine code
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234:World War II
223:
182:
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173:
172:
70:(2017-11-29)
18:
911:2017 deaths
906:1924 births
830:10 November
674:12 November
602:12 November
384:Tom Kilburn
305:accumulator
260:to work at
198:Mark 1 Star
94:Employer(s)
900:Categories
570:23 January
523:23 January
498:23 January
455:References
46:1924-03-12
885:9 January
474:The Times
78:, England
936:Ferranti
853:Archived
710:17531732
662:(2008).
646:10845153
588:(1999),
355:matrices
295:and the
282:Ferranti
270:Ferranti
266:Canberra
137:Children
106:Ferranti
446:Fortran
254:Malvern
232:during
155:Parents
131:
123:
58:England
800:
708:
644:
518:reddit
208:, and
190:Mark 1
112:Spouse
76:London
879:(PDF)
872:(PDF)
733:(2),
706:S2CID
642:S2CID
442:BASIC
363:radar
351:words
345:on a
328:pages
183:Woods
146:Helen
144:Peter
125:(
121:
887:2018
832:2009
798:ISBN
676:2009
604:2009
572:2018
525:2018
500:2018
435:Mike
196:and
65:Died
40:Born
735:doi
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634:doi
330:of
264:in
252:at
240:in
179:née
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176:(
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